Research has shown that reducing SUDs through effective treatment leads to a reduction in criminal activity\(^{[1]}\). However, most evidence comes from developed countries, and results from the Latin American context are largely unknown\(^{[2]}\). The social, cultural, economic, epidemiological context and substance use treatment (SUT) policy response are different in this region, making the question about SUT effectiveness through locally based data relevant\(^{[3]}\). We analyzed Chile as a case study and examined the impact of SUT on the prevention of contact with the criminal justice system (CJS) in the middle (3 years) and long term (5 years).
Figure 1: Differences in survival probabilities(left) and RMSTs(right) for time-to-condemnatory sentence(up) & imprisonment(bottom)
[1] M. Prendergast, D. Podus, E. Chang, et al. “Erratum to The effectiveness of drug abuse treatment: a meta-analysis of comparison group studies”. In: Drug and Alcohol Dependence - DRUG ALCOHOL DEPENDENCE 84 (sept.. 2006), pp. 133-133. DOI: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2006.02.002.
[2] H. Klingemann. “Successes and Failures in Treatment of Substance Abuse: Treatment System Perspectives and Lessons from the European Continent”. In: Nordisk Alkohol- and Narkotikatidskrift 37.4 (2020), pp. 323-37.
[3] M. Mateo Pinones, A. González-Santa Cruz, R. Portilla Huidobro, et al. “Evidence-based policymaking: Lessons from the Chilean Substance Use Treatment Policy”. En. In: Int. J. Drug Policy 109.103860 (nov.. 2022), p. 103860.
[4] P. Lambert. STPM2: Stata module to estimate flexible parametric survival models. Statistical Software Components, Boston College Department of Economics. feb.. 2010. URL: https://ideas.repec.org/c/boc/bocode/s457128.html.
[5] M. Mayer. “missRanger: Fast Imputation of Missing Values”. (2023). R package version 2.2.0. URL: https://github.com/mayer79/missRanger.